In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in electrocautery and laser surgery for both complicated and simple procedures, including cancer therapy, gynecological surgery, vascular surgery and other areas of both invasive and topical therapies.
Moreover, the use of high energy lasers and various other electrocautery-type devices in the surgical field is expected to increase dramatically with the perfection of new techniques and equipment used in the field. While laser and electrocautery surgery have proved to be extremely beneficial surgical alternatives, the benefits must be weighed in light of the environmental problems caused by the smoke plume generated during the course of the procedures.
In particular, a laser or electrocautery device burns or vaporizes tissue, including harmful tissue, in the surgical area. This produces a smoke plume that may be toxic, odorous, filled with particulate and which may include harmful microbes such as bacteria or viruses. Absent an appropriate evacuation device, the smoke produced by electrocautery or laser surgery becomes suspended in the operating room environment and may prove extremely harmful or infectious to operating room personnel. Moreover, suspended smoke plume around the surgical area is also apt to obscure or hinder the surgeon's vision and ability to carefully and safely perform a particular procedure.
As a result, the known prior art includes various types of devices for venting or exhausting laser or electrocautery generated smoke plume from the surgical area typically using a suction device and an attendant conduit extending away from the surgical area. Most of these devices also include a plurality of filters for removing particulate, toxins and odors from the suctioned plume which is then typically exhausted as "clean air" back into the operating room environment. Examples of these systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,839 (Wertz), U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,072 (Wertz) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,261 (Mohajer).
Similarly, as set forth in the '261 patent, the known prior art has recognized the importance of detoxifying the smoke plume and effectively destroying micro-organisms such as bacteria and viruses that might prove extremely harmful to operating room personnel. For example, the '261 patent contemplates the use of an antimicrobial solution through which the smoke plume is circulated for killing germs or viruses and also, alludes to possible "impregnation onto a filter matrix" of an antimicrobial agent.
The solution to the micro-organism problem disclosed in the '261 patent, however, is both inefficient and impractical. In particular, the use of a bubbled solution is extremely cumbersome and inappropriate for operating room purposes wherein there must be an economical use of space and wherein potential spilling of solutions or toxins may be extremely problematic. Too, topical impregnation onto a filter matrix of an antimicrobial suffers from a number of deficiencies, including wear caused by high velocity suction, nonuniform dispersion of the antimicrobial, evaporation and generally ineffective distribution of the chosen antimicrobial sufficient to form a relatively efficient and lasting antimicrobial filter.
The present invention solves the problem of providing an antimicrobial filter without the inefficiencies attendant to wear, evaporation, and the like presented by the prior art. In particular, the present invention contemplates a filter formed of a polymer blended with an antimicrobial agent, internally and externally, resulting in a "self-contained" blended filter media that is both long-lasting and efficient. Such filter configuration permits all methods of particulate capture since the antimicrobial is dispersed homogeneously throughout the filter material and is not prone to wear, evaporation or ineffectiveness in certain critical areas.
The present invention, therefore, comprises a filter containing an antimicrobial produced by a blending process that solves the problems of the prior art and results in a long-lasting and effective filter for destroying harmful microbes suspended in the smoke plume generated from laser or electrocautery surgery.